"Meaning that the governor counts on showing fight?" I asked in dismay.
"You are getting beyond me; but the question is likely to be answered very soon, for the men are in motion."
As he spoke the command wheeled into files, and advanced in order of fours directly toward us. At the head of the column rode three officers tricked out with gold lace and feathers; but we could see readily that Tryon himself was not among them.
By this time the people, who had been aroused by seeing us form in line as if to resist an attack, now perceived what was happening on the other side of the river, and straightway a murmuring sound arose which was at the same time menacing and disquieting.
I could see that the male visitors were hurrying the women and children around to the other side of the hill, as if expecting a battle was imminent, while the younger men and older lads were collecting into a solid mass.
"If yonder fellows were armed, Tryon's recruits would have a rough time of it," Sidney said with a laugh as he pointed at the throng which was edging toward the hill as if to support us.
"God forbid that such should be the case, else Hillsborough would be a shambles this night," a horseman near me said in a low tone. "If Tryon begins blood-letting to-day, he and we alike will rue it."
The soldiers advanced in something like regular order until they were come to the river bank, and there, not more than two hundred yards from where the Regulators and their horses remained like statues, they came to a halt.
The three officers who had led the column rode into the stream to a point midway across the ford, where they also halted.
"It is a parley!" I heard some one near me mutter, and then came a cry from that officer whose uniform bore the greatest amount of gold lace: